Proposing a buyout of the coal industry of $50bn to save $100-500 bn every year is a fascinating idea. It’s impressive how they’ve mapped out components like retraining workers, and far-reaching effects the industry has on other industries (not to mention the environment, of course). Deal of the century: buy out the US coal industry for $50bn ... continue reading

Speech from Angela Merkel has this thoughtful conclusion “Millions of people who live in undemocratic states are watching very closely how the world’s democracies react to threats to their security: whether they act circumspectly, in sovereign self-assurance, or undermine precisely what in the eyes of these millions of people makes them so attractive—freedom and the dignity of the individual.” ... continue reading

It’s not as though an abundance of information, in and of itself, leads to meaning. And our greater access to it, all the time, shouldn’t be an end in itself. Now that we’ve got it (or are getting it), we need to calm down and improve our selectivity, criticism, and very importantly, reflection on what we’re doing with it. This article makes some nice points on the subject. The problem with ... continue reading

An engineer friend once told me about a course he’d taken in which one of the things they learned was how to design for planned obsolescence. Disturbing. This article however has some very nice thinking on how we ought to value stuff more (in a sense) and how that changes the consumer impulse. I really like the bits like this: “…the term ‘inanimate object’ is similarly inadequate to d ... continue reading

Meet the Dropleton—a “Quantum Droplet” That Acts Like a Liquid ... continue reading

I like these points on a “sagacious approach to thinking” relative to garnering knowledge. It’s a provocative comparison of East/West culture. #philosophy The Last Sage Of Europe | Dragons and Pandas | Big Think ... continue reading

Elephant empathy Distressed elephants get ‘hugs’ from pals – Futurity ... continue reading

We use the term “archives” in a bunch of ways. Not everyone understands quite the same thing. This is a bit more poignant in the popular digital context as this article shows. The role of “the professional discipline” in archives and digital archives | ArchivesNext ... continue reading

From the article “…while nobody would ever call reading a “new” method for improving the mind, recent scientific studies have confirmed that reading and intelligence have a relationship so close as to be symbiotic.” Can Reading Make You Smarter ... continue reading

The people of this town are going to put their chronotypes into a database and experiment with a change in how the town operates. The article says: “In a hypothetical future world where Bad Kissingen succeeds in letting all of its citizens and visitors live out their chronotypes, the societal benefits would be huge. The town as a whole would be more creative, happier, and more alert. Social interaction would ... continue reading

Inuit throat singing granted special designation in Quebec – Aboriginal – CBC ... continue reading

I’m really enjoying the responses to this year’s Edge question “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” I haven’t finished reading them all yet but one that stuck out for me was Sam Harris’s “Our Narrow Definition of #Science” where he makes a good case for science not being distinct from human rationality. The series of responses form a great menu of thought a ... continue reading